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Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp.

38-55

Johanna Dupré

"Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-


Amerika: Rosita de la Plata, Global Imaginaries
and the Media"

Abstract
In this paper, the term global imaginary describes the way people at different times in
history have perceived the increasing interconnectedness of the world: how they have
imagined the globality of the world and their place in it. The article’s intention is to take
the case of the Argentinian-born circus jockey rider Rosita de la Plata as an example to
show how marketing mechanisms in the entertainment industry of the nineteenth
century, a time markedly characterized by processes of global integration, catered to
these global imaginaries, in order to appeal to different publics. This will be shown
mainly with the analysis of a number of newspaper advertisements and articles.

Author
Born in 1982, Johanna Dupré studied Theatre Studies, Comparative Literature and
English at Johannes Gutenberg-University, from which she graduated in 2008. From
August 2004 until May 2005 she studied at the University of Memphis, Tennessee, as a
participant of the exchange program "m3 + zdf" and with grants by Fulbright and the
DAAD. From February until May 2007, she spent time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to do
research for her master’s thesis. In 2014-14 she worked on a PhD-project on theatre in
the La Plata region for the Global Theatre History Project. Her research interests are
Latin American theatre, cultural history, transnationalism, performativity and visuality.
She currently works as a journalist in Mainz and Wiesbaden, Germany. Her publications
include Spiele des (Un)Sichtbaren. Performativität und Politik. (Marburg: Tectum,
2010).

Published under the Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0 All rights reserved by the Author.

1. Introduction: Global Imaginaries


In the twenty-first century, we live in an age that is to a large extent defined by globality
– and not only in an economic sense. As Manfred B. Steger notes in his book The Rise of
the Global Imaginary, globalization was never merely a matter of increasing flows of

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

capital and goods across national borders. Rather, it constitutes a multidimensional set
of processes in which images, sound bites, metaphors, myths, symbols, and spatial
arrangements of globality were just as important as economic and technological
dynamics. The "objective" acceleration and multiplication of global material networks
occurs hand in hand with the intensifying "subjective" recognition of a shrinking world.
(Steger 2008, 12).

It is precisely this effect that globalization has on the ways in which people imagine the
world and themselves in it, both individually and collectively, that he subsumes under the
titular term global imaginary – a notion that builds upon Charles Taylor’s concept of the
social imaginary as "the way ordinary people imagine their ‘social surroundings‘",
something often "not expressed in theoretical terms" but carried in images, stories,
legends etc." (Taylor 2007, 171/2). While Steger’s global reframing of Taylor’s term
makes immediate sense for twenty-first century society, I would argue that, in the vein of
one of the possible approaches Sebastian Conrad describes in What is Global History? –
namely global history as the history of globalization – it can also be applied to study
another time period marked by intense and accelerating processes of global integration:
the nineteenth century (Conrad 2016, 1-17).

For the purpose of this paper, then, and to a large extent differing from Steger’s notion
of the term, I understand global imaginary to mean the way people at different times in
history – for example in the nineteenth century – have perceived the increasing
interconnectedness of the world and how they have imagined the globality of the world
and their place in it. Thus, a global imaginary can encompass national or local
imaginaries, but it will always exceed them by placing those imaginaries within a global
frame.

Against this framework, a number of questions arise – one of them being how many
global imaginaries we should surmise to exist at any given point in time, and what
happens to the number of highly mobile people who interact with any number of them
during their lifetimes. How do they adapt their behavior, and in which way does the
identity ascribed to them change against the background of the respective global
imaginaries?

The case of Rosita de la Plata, an Argentinian-born nineteenth century circus jockey


or circus equestrienne, who traveled in Europe and South as well as North America as
part of her work, allows us to explore some of these questions. It does so precisely
because with her, as with circus artists or artists in general, the aspect of media that is
very much connected to the emergence of global imaginaries gains special relevance:
Rosita was both an object of media attention and a media player, meaning that she, or
more probably her managers, consciously manipulated the media in order to shape the
image by which she was perceived. We are in the realm of public relations, which is,
according to the Oxford English Dictionary: "The professional maintenance of a
favourable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person" (OED
2016). For the purposes of this paper, I would change this definition to read: "The
professional maintenance of a prospectively lucrative image by an artist and his or her
managers, meant to appeal to a certain public". We can then move on to try to answer
the following questions: How was Rosita’s international career launched? What public

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

image was created for her and to a degree also certainly by her ? Why was this particular
public image chosen? Did it change while she was performing in different countries?
How did it tie in with what we could call the different publics’ global imaginary?

2. From Argentina to Spain: Rosita’s First Steps into the Arena

Fig. 1: Rosita on the cover of La Tomasa, December 26, 1890.

According to the Argentinian theatre and circus scholar Beatriz Seibel, Rosita was born
as Rosalía Robba to a family of Italian immigrants on February 15th, 1869 in Buenos Aires
(Seibel 2012, 13). A younger sister, María Dolinda was born one year later, on June 8th
1870. Both started their circus careers in 1878, aged nine and eight, respectively, in the
Circo Arena in Buenos Aires.

As Seibel has documented, in 1878 a British equestrian company performed there


under the direction of one Henry Cottrelly (Seibel 2012, 14). Cottrelly, as Signor Saltarino
states in the year 1895 in his Artisten-Lexikon, was one of several brothers who formed
an acrobat troupe that came to be quite famous in the nineteenth century. However, at
some point they split up and Henry became a circus director (Saltarino 1895, 41). One of
his company’s attractions while appearing in Buenos Aires was a pantomime of the
Cinderella story, performed by children (Seibel 2012, 14).

How Rosita and Dolinda came to perform in the pantomime is not entirely known, but
the Argentinian theatre and circus scholar Raúl Castagnino thinks that Rosita was selling
flowers in the circus when Cottrelly decided to incorporate her into the show. He then
supposedly suggested to her father to put her under contract, meaning he would take her
to Europe and instruct her in the equestrian circus art, while she agreed to work without

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

pay for ten years – something which was very common in the circus business of that time
(Castagnino 1953, 118).

What is certain is that Rosita and Dolinda both traveled to Europe and almost
immediately started performing at the Circo Ecuestre in Barcelona, where Henry
Cottrelly had started to work as artistic director.

This is also where the very first steps in the forging of their public image were taken.
As can be seen from a press clipping from the newspaper Lo Catalinista, published in
1880, the then 11-year-old Rosita was at first announced with her first name only, and so
was her sister Dolinda (fig.2) On other occasions they were also called Rosita and
Dolinda Cottrelly, after their artistic foster-father.

Fig. 2: Lo Catalinista, October 18, 1880.

But already two years later, when performing in Palma de Mallorca, the debut of Mlle.
Rosita de la Plata was announced in the newspaper El Balear, meaning that her artist’s
name had already been introduced (fig.3). For a Spanish public, this name must have
been evocative of the former Spanish colony "Virreinato del Río de la Plata", which
extended over territories that today belong to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay
and which was dissolved in the wake of the successful South American revolutions at the
beginning of the nineteenth century (Romero 2004, 37-44). It thus conjured up
memories of a lost global imaginary, centered on Spain as a transatlantic Empire, a
somewhat nostalgic vision if held against the political turmoil and decline of mid- to late
nineteenth century Spain (Tarver and Slape 2016, 53-55).

Although of course by today’s standards this vision or global imaginary is seen to be


firmly grounded in a history of brutality and atrocities, I think it is still easy to see why it
might have appealed to a significant part of the public in Restoration Age Spain, and as a
consequence, why choosing to promote Rosita as Rosita de la Plata might have been a
wise marketing decision. On a more prosaic note, it is simply an indication of her place of
birth, Buenos Aires being situated on the banks of the Río de la Plata.

3.The Place to Launch a Career: Rosita in London


The next major step in the forging of her public image was taken when, in late 1886, she
and her sister Dolinda were set to appear at the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, London,
for the Christmas Season. At that time, London dazzled not only with popular
entertainment in general, but also with circus performances in particular. As Brenda

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Assael shows in The Circus and Victorian Society, between the middle and the end of the
nineteenth century, there had been an enormous surge in circus companies and troupes
that were advertised in The Era, a weekly which soon came to be the main press organ for
the entertainment industry. To be precise, the number of circus companies had risen

Fig. 3: El Balear, November 15, 1882.

Fig. 4: The Era, November 27, 1886.

from only ten in 1847/48 to 43 by 1887/88, and was set to rise even higher to 74 in
1897/98 (Assael 2005, 25/6). So it seems obvious that, by 1886, London was the place to
go if you wanted to launch an international circus career.

That this was exactly the intention behind Rosita’s and Dolinda’s London engagement
becomes immediately apparent from the first advertisement that promoted their
performance in The Era, commissioned by S.A. De Parravicini, who served as their agent

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

(fig. 4). In the header, it clearly states that they, together with various other artists
engaged by S.A. de Parravicini, "will be free to accept other Engagements after Christmas
Season". It is striking that while Rosita is being advertised as Rosita de la Plata, her
sister Dolinda goes back to being Dolinda Cotrelli. This is understandable in the light of
the contract Henry Cottrelly is supposed to have made with them in 1878: he was to teach
them the equestrian art while they agree to work for ten years without pay. By 1887, it is
so to speak Cottrelly’s time to cash in on the investment he made, as the contract is about
to expire. Thus the reason for Dolinda being called Dolinda Cotrelli might be that Henry
Cottrelly wants to make the connection between them clear, which of course, as a well-
known artist himself, is also an indication of quality. In later The Era advertisements that
announce the Christmas program, we actually also see a Signor Cotrelli appearing as one
of the artists of the 1887 Grand Circus Christmas Season (fig. 5) and we will see him
acting as manager for both sisters sometime after that.

What is also remarkable is how exactly the artists are presented in these
advertisments, keeping in mind that, in advertising, space is money. It seems to be very
important to point out that almost all of these artists, while being from the "principal
Continental Cirques", were also new faces for a London audience. That is obviously seen
as an asset. That said, in the majority of the cases it does not seem to have been of
particular interest where these artists came from, other than from the "principal
Continental Cirques". Notably, the only exact geographic reference in these particular
examples concerned Archie O’Brien, who had just returned "from India and Australia" –
both places, of course, part of the British Empire at that time. Similarly, in the reviews of
the Grand Circus Show, which appeared in The Era, the Standard, the Morning Post and
Lloyd’s Weekly, among other titles, the artist’s nationalities were hardly ever mentioned.
All this indicates a global imaginary where London was the center of a global empire, a
hub of the entertainment industry, a center of attraction: it was where people came to,
regardless where they came from.

It is interesting to keep this in mind when we now look at a further series of


advertisements that were clearly meant to broker Rosita and Dolinda to interested circus
proprietors. The first two of that series appeared in The Era on January 8th and 15th and
obviously their main objective was to draw the attention of prospective employers to their
remaining performances at Covent Garden (fig. 6). What we can see from the
surrounding announcements is that Rosita and Dolinda are far from being the only
female equestrian artists seeking an engagement at that time. Moreover, Dolinda is
suddenly Dolinda de la Plata and, for the first time in London, they are directly linked to
a geographical origin – not only via their telling names - but by referencing "these two
American Young Ladies".

While this is still vague, one week later they are suddenly clearly advertised as The
Two South-American Female Equestrians" in the header of another The Era ad (fig. 7).
Why this is the case can most likely be inferred from the notes directly beneath this one:
they once again bear witness to the fact that Rosita and Dolinda were definitely only two
female equestrians among many others who were seeking employment at that time. They
needed something to stand out – and it is very likely that Henry Cottrelly, who we can see
acting as their manager here, figured that their being South American could be a unique
selling point. Of course, in reality, both Rosita and Dolinda, while certainly having been

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

born in Buenos Aires, are highly transnational figures: their parents are Italian
immigrants, and they left Argentina when they were but children. But that does not mean
that Cottrelly could not make use of the words "South American" to fire the imagination
of a prospective audience, or, more precisely, suggest to employers in the circus business,
who were looking to put artists under contract in London, that these words might carry
attraction value for prospective audiences.

Fig. 5: The Era, December 11, 1886 (snip), Identical ads on December 18 and December 1886.

Fig. 6: The Era, January 15, 1887, nearly identical advertisement on January 8, 1887.

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Fig.7: The Era, 01/22/1887.

The supposition that this was part of Cottrelly’s strategy is corroborated by the next
advertisement, this time published two weeks later, on February 5th (fig. 8) The interval
of two weeks, as opposed to the previous one-week interval, might suggest that this ad
was not originally planned for, and that Cottrelly decided to commission it because he
was not satisfied with the employment offers Rosita and Dolinda had received up to then
– but we have no way of knowing this for certain.

Fig. 8:The Era, February 5, 1887.

What we can see, however, is that we not only have the words "South American" twice,
but suddenly the names are also "Senorita Rosita de la Plata" and "Senorita Dolinda de la
Plata", not "Signorina" or "Mdlle" as before (the frequent use of these terms as opposed
to "Miss", of course, already testifies to an exotistic marketing strategy underlying the
circus business as a whole, even though, as we have seen, there are no clear geographic
markers in the advertisements for many London performances), so there is clearly more
emphasis put on forging the sisters’ public image as South American equestriennes.

And this strategy seems to have worked: by the end of February, as announced by
another The Era advertisement (fig. 9), both Rosita and Dolinda were engaged with Carl
Hagenbeck’s circus – which was probably very close to the best possible engagement they
could get. After all, by 1887 Carl Hagenbeck was already a highly prominent and
respected figure in the fields of animal trade and also the so-called Völkerschauen (i.e.
nowadays highly questionable public displays of (exotic) human beings in Zoos and
public gardens). He was, however, new to the circus business, just planning to open his
very first circus in April that year – which is why this engagement was in Rosita’s and

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Dolinda’s league. From the way the Hagenbeck advertisement and the “challenge”
beneath it are worded, we can also see that Rosita’s public image as South American
Equestrienne or Jockey-Act Rider had finally been fully established.

4. Playing the Global Imaginary: Rosita in Hamburg


By April of 1887, then, Rosita was scheduled to perform at the grand opening of Carl
Hagenbeck’s Great Mammoth Circus in Hamburg. And judging from the way her
performance was promoted there, and how it was received by the local press, it becomes
very likely that the public image forged for Rosita and Dolinda in London was an
important factor in Hagenbeck’s decision to put them under contract. At least, he
decidedto continue the strategy. For instance, we see that on a poster that announces the
last performance of Hagenbeck’s circus in Hamburg on April 25th 1887, Hagenbeck
clearly promotes both Rosita and her sister Dolinda as “berühmte süd-amerikanische
Reiterin”, which translates to "famous South-American equestrienne" (fig. 10). He uses
the same wording for Dolinda in the advertisement, which announced the opening
performance, published in the Hamburger Nachrichten and all other major Hamburg
newspapers on April 4th, 1887 (fig. 11).

Fig.9: The Era,


02/26/1887.

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Fig. 10. Carl Hagenceck’s internationaler Zirkus, Programm.

Fig. 11: Hamburger Nachrichten, April 2, 1887.

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Rosita, here, is promoted as the main attraction, without the words "South American",
but there are several advertisements over the following days where she is announced as
"the famous South-American equestrienne".

When we now take a look at the press coverage of the circus performance, we see that,
in Hamburg, this marketing strategy found fertile ground. While, as stated earlier, in the
London reviews Rosita and Dolinda are never described as South American, in German
newspapers we find the following sentences:

Eine ebenso feine als künstlerisch hervorragende Leistung bietet die


Südamerikanerin Dolinda de la Plata mit ihren Pirouetten zu Pferde. (Hamburger
Nachrichten, April 6, 1887.)

Which translates to:

A very refined and outstanding artistic performance was shown by the South
American Dolinda de la Plata with her pirouettes on horseback. (My translation,
JD)

Or this:

Hagenbeck’s Circus war, wie wir vorhergesagt haben, am gestrigen Benefizabend


der kühnen südamerikanischen Reiterin Frl. Rosita de la Plata ausverkauft.
(Hamburger Fremdenblatt, April 23, 1887.)

As we predicted, Hagenbeck’s circus was sold out for yesterday’s gala performance by the
audacious South American equestrienne Miss Rosita de la Plata. (My translation, JD)

Both quotes show that she was clearly perceived according to the public image created for
her – and that her performances were a commercial success. And finally, the last example
for now, which is also the most interesting one. It was published in the city of
Magdeburg, one of the stations of Hagenbeck’s circus once they had started touring.

Sollte beider Schwestern Wiege auch an der Spree gestanden haben, so verleugnen
die reizenden Künstlerinnen doch anscheinend nicht das verwegene und feurige,
echt südamerikanische Blut. (Magdeburger General-Anzeiger, June 16, 1887.)

Which translates to:

Even if the cradle of these two sisters may have stood on the banks of the river Spree [the
river flowing through Berlin in Germany], these two charming artists do not at all give
the appearance of repudiating their dashing, passionate, authentic South-American
blood. (My translation, JD)

The striking element here is that, in this quote, we see both a certain degree of
skepticism as to whether they actually are South American and a very clear example of
the powerful exoticist fantasies this association conjured up at the time. This makes it a
perfect testament to the fact that the kind of public image forged for Rosita and Dolinda
was both recognizable as a marketing ploy for a contemporary audience – and that this
marketing ploy was still highly effective.

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Fig. 12: Der Artist, December 4, 1887.

This is also why, some months later, in December 1887, we even find Rosita de la Plata,
who by then had left Hagenbeck for an engagement at the Zirkus Herzog in Dresden, on
the front cover of Der Artist, the central German press organ for the circus industry at
that time (fig. 12). And by now it should be no surprise that the headline for the article,
which sings her praise in the highest manner is "Signorita Rosita de la Plata. Die erste
Jockey-Reiterin der Welt – aus Süd-Amerika". In English: Signorita Rosita de la Plata.
The world’s best jockey – from South America (my translation, JD).

To some extent we even have a similar oscillation here between the effectiveness of her
public image and markers that point to its constructedness: Clearly, the word "signorita"
does not exist – it should be either "señorita" or "signorina".

This public image or marketing ploy was very effective; having established this, I
would like to briefly go back to find out why. Apart from the fact that of course the end of
the nineteenth century was one of the high points of exoticism in Europe as a whole, and
most certainly also in Germany – the poster promoting the last performance of
Hagenbeck’s circus, for example, also promotes one of his infamous Völkerschauen, the
Singhalese Caravan or Ceylon show – there is, I think, another reason, at least in the
Hamburg context – and this has to do with a specific global imaginary.

Being the headquarters of the huge shipping line Hamburg America Line and also the
Hamburg Süd-Amerikanische Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft, Hamburg was a major
hub when it came to connecting Europe with the Americas. As an unnamed
contemporary states in a small treatise that was originally published in 1901 as an
annotation to the timetable of the Hamburg America Line, by the end of the nineteenth
century there were three ocean liners per week which departed for New York, and four
which departed for South America, particularly for Brazil and the Río de la Plata region.
Twice per week ships were leaving for Mexico, and there were also several additional

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

biweekly connections to North and South America (Thiess 2010, 12/3). These ocean liner
connections were advertised on a regular basis in newspapers like the Hamburger
Nachrichten (fig. 13) and by this fact alone must have been prominent in the minds of the
newspaper readers among Hamburg’s inhabitants.

Fig. 13: Hamburger Nachrichten, January 4, 1887. Advertisement for ocean liner connections
Hamburg – North & South America Mexico; Hamburger Nachrichten.

In the treatise, the contemporary author even states that by 1901, Hamburg’s shipping
lines, together with the Bremen-based Norddeutsche Lloyd, had surpassed every other
steamship company in the world (Thiess 14). While this clearly has to be seen in the light
of the nationalist sentiment of the time, even today scholars, such as Lincoln Paine in his
book Sea and Civilization: Maritime History of the World, maintain that "by the end of
the century, British primacy on the North Atlantic was under threat from both Germany
and the United States" (Paine 2014, Chapter 18, "Annihilation of Space and Time",
"Competition on the North Atlantic").

In addition to that, there is also the fact that nearly all of the roughly six million
Germans who emigrated overseas between 1820 and 1930 migrated to the Americas –
overwhelmingly to North America, which attracted 90 percent of all emigrants, but some
also went to South America (Schmahl 2016). Keeping these two factors in mind, I think it
is fair to state that within the global imaginary of many Germans at that time the
Americas – while still being seen as exotic and probably exciting fantasies of untamed
open landscapes and wild men on horses – were in a sense much closer to home than any
other region of the world – which of course made a marketing strategy centering on the
factor South American highly promising, and demonstrably effective.

5. An American Global Imaginary: Rosita’s Return to Argentina


But was this phenomenon, a marketing principle, which could be viewed as appealing to
the public’s global imaginary, only to be found in the European circus business of the

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

nineteenth century? If we consider this period as one marked by a growing


interconnectedness of the world, as a historic precedent to the forces beneath today’s
globalization, this clearly ought not to be the case. Interconnectedness, after all, means
that there are transformations in all the connected parts, albeit to different extents and
effects. Let us then take a look at what happened when Rosita returned to the country she
left when she was a child.

Fig. 14: Advertisement for the performance of Frank Brown‘s Company at the Teatro San Martín,
Buenos Aires (published in Seibel 2012, 67)

By 1893, Rosita de la Plata had gone back to South America and was currently engaged
with the company of Frank Brown, a British-born clown and circus impresario whom she
was to marry some years later. In the program which announces her performance at the
Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires, she is promoted as "la célebre ecuestre argentina que
tanto ha llamado la atención en las pricipales capitales del Viejo Mundo" which translates
to "the famous Argentinian equestrienne who received so much attention in the principal
capitals of the Old World" (my translation). Also, you can see the words Jockey Inglés
next to her image, they refer to the trick she performed, jumping onto the back of a
galloping horse, which was sometimes called the English Jockey Act – but of course it is
also somewhat of a signal that the words are spelled out.

At first glance the sentence "received so much attention in the principal capitals of the
Old World" does not carry that much meaning – but it starts to be relevant when you
read it against the context of the major transformations which the city of Buenos Aires
was going through at that time. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the city was
not only massively growing due to mass migration. It was also undergoing a huge
infrastructural modernization project, whose goal was to leave the colonial past behind
once and for all, and to turn Buenos Aires, which had been called la gran aldea or the
great village up to that point, into a modern metropolis that could rival the ones in
Europe (Rapport and Seoane 120-136).

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Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

Fig. 15: Postcard depicting the Avenida de Mayo around 1900


(courtesy Biblioteca Naciónal Mariano Moreno)

It was the time when the Avenida de Mayo was being built (fig. 15, construction started
in 1888 and ended in 1894), a spacious, magnificent avenue similar to the grand Parisian
boulevards. One of its chief advocates was Buenos Aires’ then mayor Torcuato de Alvear,
who expressly took George-Eugène Haussmann and his renovation of Paris as a role
model (Llanes 1955, 23-32). It is also during that time that the old colonial-style theatre
Coliseo Provisional (1804-1872/73), a relatively plain building whose entrance, in the
minds of some beholders, seemed to befit a coach house more than a theatrical building
(40), was replaced with a whole plethora of new, modern, neoclassical and Art Nouveau
style theatres that were constructed in Buenos Aires in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century (fig. 16 and 17, Rapoport and Seoane 2007, 239).

The historic Teatro San Martìn at calle Esmeralda, in which Rosita’s 1893
performance was staged, was one of them. Thus, it does not seem too far-fetched to
surmise that it is a global imaginary connected to this modernization project and to the
fact that the population of Buenos Aires was mainly comprised of people with strong ties
to their original European homes that the words "the famous Argentinean equestrienne
who received so much attention in the principal capitals of the Old World" appeal to. This
was a global imaginary in which Buenos Aires was not only in many ways connected to
the Old World, but had become itself a modern metropolis and capital, on a par with its
Old-World-counterparts.

Rosita thus came to be something like a connecting figure – which is highlighted by


the fact that the 1893 performances did not mark the first time she returned to
Argentina. That had already happened five years earlier, in 1888, and after she left to
tour Europe again from 1888 to 1893, Argentinean newspapers excessively reported on

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

her success abroad, or the presents awarded to her by important people who visited her
gala performances (Seibel 2012, 60). By virtue of this media coverage Rosita was, in a
sense, connecting Argentina to the world – and the world to Argentina.

Fig. 16 and 17: Drawing of the Coliseo (1804-1873, Talluard 1932, 32) and a postcard depicting turn of the
century theatres (courtesy Biblioteca Naciónal Mariano Moreno).

Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”


Journal of Global Theatre History ISSN: 2509-6990 Issue 1, Number 2, 2016, pp. 38-55

References
Primary Sources

Der Artist, April 12, 1887.


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La Tomasa: setmanari catalá: Any III Número 122, December 26, 1890. Bibliotéca Virtual de Prensa
Historica.
Lo Catalinista: diari no polítich: Número 3, October 18, 1880. Bibliotéca Virtual de Prensa Historica.
Poster advertising the last performance of Hagenbeck’s circus in Hamburg. Courtesy Hagenbeck Archiv,
Hamburg.
Postcard depicting the Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires around 1900. Courtesy Biblioteca Nacional
Mariano Moreno, Buenos Aires.
Postcard several newly constructed theatres in Buenos Aires around 1900. Courtesy Biblioteca Nacional
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The Era: The Official Organ of Entertainment […], February 26, 1887. British Newspaper Archive.

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Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
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Johanna Dupré “Die erste Jockey-Reiterin der Welt, aus Süd-Amerika”

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